Many of the chapter’s members are “military folk, lawyers, police officers and doctors,” and their message is “that education, work, and — above all — the capacity to delay gratification enabled them to buy $35,000 Harleys. That works better than abstract sermonizing, says Donald Thigpen, an organizer of Buffalo Thunder:
‘They know these bikes are very expensive, and nobody gave them to us’,” he says. Other chapters “often adopt schools, using gleaming, rumbling bikes to catch children’s attention.”